Royte Response

Elizabeth Royte’s essay about male cruisers and sex trash in her local park was an…interesting read to say the least. While the essay does, at points stray away from her main topic of choice (the remnants of forest sexacpades) Royte does relate everything back to the “main plot” of the article. I think that the “surprise” of the essay was her own experiences that Royte had with trash, seeing her “obsession” with it grow into something that is now an unconscious part of her.

The essay was posted by Royte on Medium, which could be described as the sleeker version of WordPress (which is ironic since this response is posted on WordPress). Royte is able to use the platform of Medium and use it to her advantage to make her essay more effective.

The most noticeable aspect (to me at least) that she took advantage of in her essay was the use of visuals. To be more specific, Royte was able to use pictures that she (or maybe a member of her litter squad) took in the woods whilst cleaning up to break up her essay. Each picture was accompanied by scrollable text overtop, and acted as both a way for Royte to use her narrating voice in a thought/comment that was outside of the larger narrative as well as for her to easily transition through the various topics of the essay. While this is a clever technique that she took advantage of, I personally did not enjoy it while reading. The problem that I had with it was that it distracted me from the larger narrative that she was telling, and forced me to look at the blurred out picture in order to continue to read on (unless that was your plan all along Elizabeth…well played.)

Along with the header-esque pictures, Royte also employs the use of other visual media, such as pictures of litter that I am assuming she has found (condoms, lube, and mouthwash, to name a few). Three out of the four pictures used by Royte are accompanied by a statistic related to littering. The fourth picture is somewhat of an outlier, with its statistic relating to the behaviours of gay men. Even though they are not connected by the same type of statistic, they all contain information to the narrative that Royte is relating in her essay. I like that she didn’t incorporate the statistics into the larger “plot” of the essay, as I think that it would detract from the personal anecdotes that she is relating, as well her thoughts as a whole on the act of cruisers leaving behind their personal remains.

At the end of the day, I really enjoyed Royte’s unusual essay. While there were a few techniques used that I disagreed with, Royte’s use of Medium’s platform made her essay maintain an important factor: It was very easy to read and become involved in her story. Her use of pictures aided her immensely, and I think that a majority of her story needed to have the visual aspect of them there for the reader.